# KRYSTALLOS BELL SYSTEM FILM DEVELOPMENT OF QUARTZ CRYSTAL MANUFACTURING 59554 CF

The 1962 Owen Murphy Productions film for Bell Telephone “Krystallos” starts with close-up footage of quartz crystals, one of the most common minerals on Earth (:07), and shifts to a drawing of a watercolor painting depicting mountains and meadows (:30), before shifting to an icy blue quartz (:45). The word “crystal” is derived from the Greek word krystallos, meaning “clear ice.” The film’s narrator describes how two young French brothers, Jacques and Pierre Curie, discovered piezoelectrics in their 19th-century lab when they found that striking or squeezing quartz would produce an electric signal ( 1:10 ). In the beginning, natural quartz was mass produced for use in electronic applications. However the process was very costly, and limited supply eventually became a problem. Bell Telephone Laboratories and Western Electric chemists and engineers had a challenge on their hands: how could they keep quartz costs down and supply unlimited? In a collaborative effort, they set out to create the first man-made quartz crystals ( 2:51 ). In 1946, after several attempts, a balance of controlled temperature, pressure, and time enabled them to grow quartz crystals from tiny crystal wafers and seeds ( 3:35 ). We see the different outcomes of the experiment in the film: sometimes the seed plates will mysteriously disappear, or emerge unchanged. At other times, even though the crystals will grow—there’d be deformities such as cracks and bubbles ( 04:47 ). By studying these early results,…

- Kind: Film
- Genres: Industrial and advertising
- Archive: [Internet Archive](https://archive.org/details/59554KrystallosCF_201802)
- Licence or status: none stated by the archive
- Who can watch: Tweens profiles and older (the archive gives no rating; placed by Invisible Network from its collection and subjects)

[Watch now](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/watch/archive/ia/59554KrystallosCF_201802?play=1)